Chapter Three
It’s a well-known fact that the lifestyle of a rock star by definition is not conducive to early mornings as it usually entails a lot of late nights and even more sleeping in. Unfortunately for Kendall, a farmer’s lifestyle entails just the opposite: early mornings followed by a boatload of hard work. By the time she’d made her way back to her grandmother’s house the night before and then cleaned up her old room well enough to sleep in, it had been past midnight. Which is why it hurt to peel her eyes open at—she peered over at the clock—five in the morning.
“It’s Sunday,” she croaked to the blurry form of a man standing over her. “And you’re in my bedroom.”
“I am still your husband,” he said sternly but she sensed the amusement in his tone. “And this is a twenty-four-hour, year-round working farm, sweetheart. Get your ass up and let’s get to work.”
“Ugh,” she groaned and pulled the sheet back over her head. Her eyes flew open when cold air hit her body like a sheet of ice. Damian stood above her clutching the sheet in his hand, his eyes wide staring at her body with undisguised want in his eyes. Suddenly he dropped the material and dragged his hand down his jaw.
“Jesus, Kendall.” His face colored and his eyes turned dark before he forcibly closed them and turned his back to her.
It had been so long since anybody had made her feel like an attractive woman. Sure, men hit on her constantly, but she was either a trophy to them or just another notch on the old belt. Damian looked at her with a dirty kind of reverence laced with just a bit of pain. And that giant hole inside her chest pulsed with…want or need or regret. Or all of the above. Damian hated her for the way she’d left and never looked back, but she couldn’t help craving the way his gaze ate at her and the way he made her body throb. She liked it. She liked it a lot.
“Prude. It’s not like I’m naked.” She bit back a laugh as she sat up.
“No, but your tiny nightshirt doesn’t leave much to the imagination. I’m trying to be a gentleman.”
She laughed as she threw on a pair of old jeans and a sweatshirt. “Oh really? Since when? Besides I’m decent now.” She wasn’t ready to bring up their interlude in the entryway the day before. Damian turned slowly, his eyes burning across her body, burning her raw from the outside in.
“I need to freshen up, wash my face, and I’ll meet you downstairs in fifteen minutes.” Yeah, she was exhausted, but she wasn’t letting him get under her skin. She needed to send some emails and get the snarling pack of wolves off her back. But she’d get to those that evening. And once that was done, she’d do her time on the farm and get the hell out.
And go where?
Well, where didn’t matter. Anywhere but Blackberry Cove and over one hundred miles away from Damian Sloane was the correct answer. Because for the first time since her early childhood she didn’t know what the next step would be. When she was little she went where her mother dragged her, from one man to the next until she’d been left on Nana’s broken old deck. Shortly after that she met Delilah and they had each other.
Around that same time she’d discovered an old acoustic guitar and some classic country sheet music in some forgotten corner of the attic. She’d carefully dusted the grime off the instrument and taught herself those songs from videos on the Internet. The music had been her salvation, her entertainment, and her gift. She improved so quickly Nana had stopped belittling her when she played and was, for once, thankfully silent. Making music changed everything. Not in any obvious way. Music created its magic inside of her. Made her feel taller, prettier, smarter. And not so lonely.
Then Damian had turned her entire world upside down and inside out. She’d learned how to trust and love another human being without the fear of hurt or loss. Even after she’d left him she’d known what direction she was headed.
Now that her music career was over and she had no interest in living in that hellacious machine that chewed up people like her, she had no idea what was next. There probably weren’t a lot of bands willing to take on singer songwriter guitar players with a reputation for not paying her musicians, not to mention her abysmal image in the press. When she’d left Damian that night so many years ago she’d gotten a bus ticket for LA only because she figured she’d be able to land a job as a waitress easily. The bar she’d landed at let her play her guitar when the crowd was thin so she could earn a few dollars in tips. It had just happened. She’d never sought it, never earned it. And embarrassing as it was, she’d never wanted it.
A life with her husband on this farm had been her dream all along. But that hadn’t been the hand she’d been dealt. So she’d take what she could get, she’d focus on these few weeks on this property, with Damian. She’d stay back-breakingly busy and lose herself in the work, the feel of the dirt in her hands.
Kendall quickly completed her business and pulled her hair into a single, messy braid, making it downstairs in under fifteen minutes.
Take that, bossy man.
Damian was standing with his back to her, staring out the big kitchen window, with a halo of soft light outlining his broad body. He wore a thick flannel shirt over a hooded sweatshirt and his black weathered hat sat low on his head. A familiar ache settled into her bones as she grabbed a cup of coffee and added some cream before joining him. The sky was still dark, but the edge of the sun peeked over the rolling hills bordering the eastern half of the property, and a rooster was already crowing because a working farm never waited until daylight for the day to begin. Though it had been years since she’d sent him off to work the farm early in the morning, his silhouette invoked an intimacy so innate she nearly reached for him, but she held on to her cup and shoved her other hand in her jeans pocket.
“So what’s our plan?” she asked, looking up at his strong jawline, the one she could still see through his trimmed beard. There was no denying Damian Sloane was a very good-looking man. The last few years had taken his boyish handsomeness and morphed it into something a little harder, a lot tougher than he’d been, but ruthlessly beautiful nevertheless. In fact, of all the men she’d met in LA, none could hold a candle to his rugged cowboy looks.
Without turning, he spoke. “We have a shorter chore list on Sundays. Usually have a couple hands to help out, but I gave them the rest of the weekend off. We need to feed and milk the goats, hose down the milking stations, and check on the gardens, as well as check on the hens and gather eggs. Normally I’d take more time to show you around, but I have a date tonight. We’ll do the full tour tomorrow.”
That heavy weight in her chest dropped to her belly. He had a date. Because he had a life now that didn’t include her. Maybe one that included a girlfriend. She’d chosen that for both of them, but still couldn’t ignore the stab of discomfort between her ribs. She’d only run from him because she’d had to, not because she’d suddenly stopped loving him or had an insatiable need to play music on a big stage. She’d run because he was going to give up his family, his life for her, because she couldn’t give him the family they’d promised each other. And she couldn’t do that to him. Not then and not now.
She swallowed down the weird little jab, she swallowed down the past, and she swallowed down any feelings about how he’d touched her the evening before and simply nodded. As she turned to set her cup in the sink a huge whitish beige bundle of fur ran in through the back door and bounded into the kitchen, landing in front of two large steel bowls full of food and water she hadn’t noticed. Jumping back to prevent being trampled she screeched. “What the hell is that? A bear?”
The curve of Damian’s mouth made her want to forget everything she’d resolved to not do and jump into his arms. “Dog. Shrek.” He laughed. “He was supposed to be herd protection…stay outside and protect the goats, but he decided he wanted to be a pet. I had to get another animal for the night watch.”
Her racing heart slowed, and she stared at the giant animal wolfing its food down, before it suddenly ran to her and smothered her hand in slobber. She patted it on the head. “Nice dog.”
“For a country girl, you sure are skittish around animals.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Let’s go, cowboy.” What Damian didn’t realize was that Kendall craved the oblivion that physical work provided. She was looking forward to the kind of hard work that would help her perhaps forget about the clouds of doom floating above her head. Maybe she’d even forget the constant empty ache in her chest she felt every time she looked over at the man she was supposed to spend forever with.
Damian handed her a pair of oversized gloves and led her out to the goat pen and animal barn. When Damian unlatched the gate, a flood of goats of different ages and colors scattered out followed by a gray donkey with a decidedly arrogant expression.
“So, a donkey?” she asked.
“Herd protection.” He raised a brow in answer and swept his arm toward the animals.
“Seriously?” In the dusky morning light, she was fascinated by the goats’ funny little sounds, and prancing, playful demeanor. The donkey stood guard over them, walking back and forth but never far from the herd even when he finally dipped his head into his trough to eat. For a moment all she could do was clap her gloved hands together and laugh at their antics. When she looked up her laughter caught in her throat as her gaze snagged on his—intense hazel eyes stripping her bare and leaving her exposed.
“What’s his name?” she asked more to cover the ugly throbbing hole in her chest than from real interest.
“Donkey,” he said and that one corner of his mouth turned up reminding her of an unspoken dirty vow.
Dammit. How was she ever going to make it through the next few weeks or however long it took to get him to buy her out when he looked at her like that…a terrifyingly potent mix of amusement and longing on his face before it turned hard, cold, unforgiving? Shaking off the chill he’d suddenly directed at her, Kendall smiled. She would let their shattered past dictate her reactions from now on, she reassured herself. She would not get caught up in Damian’s warm eyes or wish he’d wrap her in his big arms just one more time. She would stay like she promised and then she would leave. This time for good. It was best that way.
For him, anyway.
*
No longer coated in goat shit and mud, Damian stepped from the shower, toweled himself off, and began to dress for his date with Carissa. He’d dodged the mayor’s daughter and her overt advances for years. Back in his senior year of high school she’d even gone so far as to ambush him naked at a party, and if it had been even a month before, he probably would have taken her up on her blatant offer. She was pretty and smart. But a few weeks before he’d seen something that would change his life forever.
Kendall Kelly. One very hot afternoon that year, just days before school let out for the summer and he would be preparing to go off to university to study political science and then law, he’d seen her sitting under the shade of an old oak tree strumming on a battered guitar. Her long blonde hair had been blowing around her face and he could see the freckles dancing across the bridge of her nose even from where he stood on the walkway several feet away.
Sure he’d known her since she was little; everyone knew the Kellys’ granddaughter. She’d been dropped off at her grandmother’s by her mother at the age of ten and had forevermore been known as Poor Little Kendall Kelly. At least until she’d swanned out of town four years before and shown up on television and in the tabloids as that year’s newest it-girl, the punk rock cowgirl. With the brash, brazen style of a rocker and the sweet, dulcet voice of a country singer from back in the day. Damian had been the only one in town not surprised at Kendall’s talent and popularity, as he’d been the only one, including her own grandma, who hadn’t written her off as basic expendable trash.
Until Kendall had taken off, he’d never even looked at another girl or woman. Was never even tempted. Instead of leaving town for the school his family had picked for him, he’d opted to study agricultural science at the local college so he could stay close to Kendall. Mary Ellen had traded him work for lodging and he’d patiently waited for Kendall to graduate high school before he went against his family’s wishes and ran off to Vegas for an Elvis-officiated wedding. He’d been so sure she was his one and only. Sure enough to allow his family to disown him and move into that crappy cottage. He’d forgone the carefully planned future his parents had crafted years before in order to start running the farm for her mean old grandma.
Hell, he’d stayed even after his wife ran off and became a singer because by that time, it was his home. And for a while, he’d hoped she might find her way back home to Blackberry Cove. To him.
Now she was back. Damian sighed and dug his good boots out of the narrow closet. The day hadn’t been a total waste. He’d spent more time fixing Kendall’s messes and mistakes than doing any actual farm work, but he had to give her credit for sticking in there. By mid-afternoon her pink and blonde hair was covered in dried goat milk and hay and her designer jeans were torn in three very unfashionable locations. Her once sparkly boots had been covered in the same brown gunk he’d been coated with.
But she’d laughed and charmed the damn dog as well as the ornery-ass donkey that faithfully guarded the goats, but treated him like a servant. He’d fallen into her orbit again and had to remind himself what she really was: a two-timing, backstabbing, runaway wife.
He walked out of the cabin, feeling a bit ridiculous and traitorous despite repeatedly convincing himself that it was in fact Kendall who was the traitor. He stood on the porch and surveyed the property before him. He loved how he could still feel the cool breeze and taste the salt on the air though the ocean was nearly five miles away. He breathed it in, the salty air, the crisp bite to the evening, the dirt, and the animals. He’d made this place everything it was. He’d made it into a home. Mary Ellen had sat back on her ramshackle porch, the one she wouldn’t let him replace, and let him take over everything but her house. She’d watched as he’d slowly turned the weedy pile of dust and rotted outbuildings into a flourishing organic vegetable and goat products farm. Never encouraging, but neither discouraging. Just watching and signing off on the various things he’d set in front of her, like the loan paperwork or the customer and vendor agreements.
Damian was self-aware enough to realize he was a cliché, the way he’d poured all his heartache and buried his anger on this farm as readily as he’d the poured concrete and dug the trenches. And he sure as hell wasn’t letting Kendall take the one thing he had left, the one thing he’d made for himself despite her betrayal.
He could see across the yard between them through her window where she paced in the back of her kitchen waving her arms and talking into her cell phone dramatically. Probably talking to her agent or lawyer. Damian bit down and ground his teeth, his jaw aching. She wasn’t taking a damn thing from him. And, honestly, he didn’t give a shit what she did or where she went once she left this time, only that she left for good. Because that would be the agreement once she signed over the other half of the property and business to him. She’d get her money, her way out, as long as she promised to never darken his door again.
He clenched his fists and walked back into his house before remembering that Kendall Kelly wasn’t his problem and she hadn’t been for a very, very long time. She wasn’t taking anything from him again and she would only be there a few weeks.
Slamming the door shut and turning the radio up so he could finish dressing, Damian heard a familiar song blaring over his newly installed hidden speakers. A song sung by an angel with a slight razor’s edge marring the nearly perfect voice, adding a punkish twinge. The music hard like ocean boulders beaten over and over by the wave of words full of pain and unfathomable loneliness.
Kendall’s voice. Kendall’s words. Their shattered life on the radio for the world to share their private pain. And then a lyric he didn’t remember ever hearing. Actually after listening to her first album over and over he’d avoided her music as much as possible, which hadn’t been difficult if he stayed on the farm and worked until he fell into bed each night. Exhausted and alone. But these quiet lines in an otherwise dark ballad caught his attention.
Where time bends, we’ll meet again at the sea of broken promises
Where I gave myself to you and you called me your forever.
Had she written that about them and the first time he’d really kissed her…not the sweet soft meeting of mouths on the porch of the cottage, but a devouring innocence-stealing announcement of lust, and proclamation of impropriety? He’d never forget the day they’d hiked down the Central River and ended up at a bluff overlooking the ocean. They’d climbed down the rocks and walked for a mile or so before coming across a strange little cave with a tree growing off the side of the mouth. Kendall had insisted it was a brilliant tree that had endured the sand and the sea to thrive there on its own. She’d looked so damn beautiful with her blonde hair whipping around her face and her cheeks pink with cold.
He hadn’t had a choice, he hadn’t had control of his body any longer, and he’d reached out and wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her close before cradling her face in his hands. She’d smiled sweetly—the sexy-cute way her lips curved up at the edges killed him every time. And he’d kissed her hard. Not like their other soft exchanges, but with promise and possession. He belonged to her then and she to him and there had been no question otherwise.
Christ. He would never be free of her despite all his bluster and anger. She would never truly be gone from his heart, would she?
*
Although Kendall wasn’t usually prone to fits of moping, she felt quite deserving of a good sullen pity party where she could despair about her current state of affairs and definitely not think about Damian’s date. After showering and throwing on some old sweats and a sweatshirt, she called her former agent and ranted, begged for advice and then resigned herself to living in Blackberry Cove for the next few weeks. She rattled around her grandmother’s ancient kitchen and fixed herself a cup of chamomile tea before stepping out onto the rotting back porch, making a quick note on her phone to run to the builder store in town the next day to price out wood for a new deck.
The broken planks groaned under her slippered feet, but that was nothing new. That old porch had complained for decades every time someone set foot on it. But two steps from the bench she’d planned to park herself on for an hour or so, she heard a loud snap followed by a quiet crunch. Her stomach dropped and then lurched to her throat as her body fell through a gaping wooden hole that opened around her foot and swallowed her leg. A sharp pain shot through her ankle like a bullet and hot tea splashed over her front as her cup fell with a thud. A scream ripped from her throat and she threw her arms wide to keep from falling completely into the hole. The pain flowed out from her foot and moved up her leg, but she was already being pulled up, strong hands gently tugging her from the now Kendall-sized crater in the porch.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” Damian’s deep voice soothed her. “I’ve got you.” He tugged her onto his lap, holding her gently as his hands roamed down her body checking for wounds. She hissed as he skimmed over her right ankle. Cursing, he moved his hands up to her face and cupped her jaw, staring into her eyes. “Anywhere else?”
Even with pain radiating from her ankle and adrenaline surging through her veins, she could get lost in the green and gold depths of those eyes. How many times had she done just that as he held her close, as close as two people could be?
His fingers tightened around the back of her head. “Kendall? Are you hurt anywhere else? Did you hit your head?”
“No,” she said quietly, not wanting to move, not caring about the aching throb in her ankle, or the growing thrum between her legs. Only wanting to stay there, in Damian Sloane’s arms, his eyes locked on hers. But then that sharp ache moved back to her chest. And she remembered that she’d given him up a long time ago. She’d traded in his love for a more noble cause or so she’d told herself a million times since she’d walked away. “No, I’m fine. My ankle hurts a little.”
He crept his fingers up into her hairline and she felt a tremor move through her body as they began to caress the back of her head. Oh God. She couldn’t do this. Damian’s hands on her body hurt, but it was when they were gone that the real agony took hold. She didn’t pull away instead she tucked her cheek against his chest…his hard broad chest. And he let her, his hand continuing to stoke her hair.
“It’s scraped up pretty bad and turning purple. You need a doctor.” His chest was so warm. She luxuriated in the rumble of his voice against her cheek. He felt like he always had, like safety and warmth. Like home. She wanted to stay right there forever. Instead she pulled back a little and looked up at him.
“Oh you know me, I’m such a klutz. It’s already starting to feel better.” She slapped his chest lightly, going for playful but achieving only awkward. “Go on your date, Damian. If you’ll just help me into the house, I’ll be fine.”
“Shut up, Kendall,” he said and in one elegant movement he stood with her in his arms. Her hands went instinctively around his neck as he carried her into the living room where he set her on the couch and covered her with the old blue quilt folded there. Then he pulled his phone from his pocket and stepped out on to the porch. She could hear him speaking on the phone, but couldn’t make out his words. Was he canceling his date? She tried not to picture the person on the other end of the call, not wanting to visualize the kind of woman Damian was attracted to now. Not wanting to burn the image of him kissing someone else, touching someone else into her brain. But, of course, he had to have been with plenty of women since her.
Damian was a gorgeous, built cowboy with freaking abs of steel and wide muscled shoulders. Even back in high school girls had clamored for his attention. She took a shuddering breath and closed her eyes.
Damian wasn’t hers anymore. How many times did she need to remind herself of that?
She opened her eyes when she heard the door open and close again. “I called my mom to come check on that ankle. Let me take a look and make sure you’re not hurt anywhere else.” Despite the pain in her foot, Kendall scrambled to sit up, her heart pounding so hard she could hear it in her eardrums.
Kendall could carry a lot. Hell, she’d been carrying it all on her shoulders for a very long time. But all these things were starting to pile up: Ben stealing from her, her contract cancellation, her sister’s and grandmother’s deaths, seeing Damian again. They were a giant hastily stacked Jenga tower about ready to tumble down all around her. And the prospect of seeing Dr. Evelyn Sloane again was the straw that might just break her camel’s back, that last block that throws everything into the kind of hurricane-like wreckage you just can’t put back together.
“No, no, no. I’m fine,” she said, wincing as pain throbbed up her leg when she finally made it into a sitting position.
Damian gently rearranged her and set a cushion under her foot. “No, you’re not.”
He stood next to the couch and ran his long fingers through his dark still-wet hair. A single drop of water rolled down the side of his neck and she had the sudden impulse to hop up and lick it off. She’d obviously caught him in the middle of getting ready for his date. His hair was damp and uncombed, his plaid western shirt was still unbuttoned, and the view under that shirt was magnificent. Lean, hard muscle ridged his chest and abdomen. Light hair dusted his chest and narrowed down into a light trail that disappeared into his half-buttoned jeans. Her pain-addled brain had no trouble filling in the dots of what hid beneath those button-fly jeans.
“Hey, eyes up here,” he said crouching down and tipping her chin up toward his face, a smug curve of his mouth confirming she’d been caught staring quickly disappeared and was replaced with that hard grim line he wore constantly now. “I’m not exactly thrilled about seeing my mother either, but you’re hurt and she’s a doctor.”
Damian’s fingers on her chin burned, scorched like they’d been sitting in fire. He stared into her eyes with a matching heated glare, but his tone was bleak, resigned. He wasn’t asking, he was telling her the way it was. But she had to wonder just what he meant by not wanting to see his mom. Despite how much his parents disapproved of her and Damian’s relationship, he’d always been fairly close to Evelyn. What had happened to change all that? And if Evelyn wasn’t in contact with her son any longer then his dad was probably out of the picture too. And the rift she thought she might have imagined at the attorney’s office might actually be real.
So who did Damian have left? She knew from her grandma that his twin, Duncan, hadn’t been home since he’d joined the Navy at eighteen. Maybe this woman he was dating was all he had? When they’d been together he’d been friends with a group of guys from his high school football team, although most had drifted away during the first two years of their marriage. Some had gone off to school, some had paired off and married young like they had, and then others moved on to other areas. Were any of them still Damian’s friends?
Her heart ached more than her ankle at how little she actually knew about her husband—the one man she’d ever loved, the one man she could never have again—and the life he had now. And when the sound of tires driving up the unpaved driveway snapped his gaze away, it took his warm fingers too, leaving behind a blistering coldness. Damian stood and buttoned his shirt before turning and stalking to the door.
She wanted to thank him for helping her, ask him to hold her if only for just a minute more. But instead she called out, “I’m really okay. Nothing a warm bath and some rest won’t fix. No need for you to see your mother or to miss your date…”
He stopped before walking out onto the front porch and braced his hand on the open door frame. He dipped his head for a moment as if to gather his words and then, without turning, he growled, “Just so we’re clear, sweetheart, you’re no longer in charge here.”
If she’d tried to predict what he was going to say at that moment she wouldn’t have guessed anything close to the almost guttural snarl he’d directed at her. And, dammit, if the fiery tension that was building between them didn’t feel a lot like anger now and a lot less like sex.
“Then who is?” was the not-so-clever comeback she returned.
Slowly, he turned to look at her with a surprisingly feral smile, one that made her even angrier, but also made her feel all kinds of tingly things down between her legs. That look was not one she’d ever seen on Damian’s Sloane’s face. It was a smile, yes, but it was also cruel and sensual and hard all at once.
“I am,” he said and walked through the doorway, leaving her staring after him.